As health care costs increase, consumers are being asked to manage more of their own health care spending. One of the most common ways this is happening is through high deductible health insurance plans.

Over the past two years, one of the top health care priorities in Philadelphia has been getting people signed up for health insurance. That is still a huge, unfinished task, but alongside it we need to make sure we have enough doctors in the right places to deliver care. For health care reform to deliver on its promise, people need good access to primary care.

Despite all the media attention, most of us are only bystanders to the activities surrounding “Obamacare.” That’s because most of us still get our health insurance through our employers. The ACA focused on stabilizing the individual market and making coverage more affordable for people buying health insurance on their own.

“University professors…just don’t matter in today’s great debates,” wrote New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof earlier this year, igniting a fiery national discussion on the role of academia in public policy. Kristof went on to criticize not these professors’ methods or findings, but rather the gaps between such findings and the public who can use them. His plea?

Since Edward Snowden revealed that US agencies have been following social media, telephone data, and other seemingly private communications of US citizens, public reaction to his actions has been mixed. Roughly as many call him a traitor as call him a hero, and some simultaneously criticize his approaches and praise him for what he revealed.